davethegrinch.net

Dave Says:

Mongolia was just one of those words that I would use in hyperbolic statements such as: “Oh my God, the nearest decent bar might as well be in Mongolia” or “If you don’t live in Seattle you may as well live in Mongolia!” Now I have been to the object of my exaggeration I can tell you three things. Firstly, it doesn’t have any decent bars although the beer is quite yummy, secondly, it is indeed in the middle of absolutely nowhere and lastly and most importantly, it is everything that the middle of nowhere should be when it is the cultural and commercial bridge between Russia and China – two places that are definitely somewhere. I’m sure Sarah will tell you about its beauty, desolation, warmth and humanity so I will tell you about what it’s like to be on a timeless and perpetual frontier between east and west. (more…)

Sarah Says:

If only the word Propaganda began with the letter “C”. Instead we will have to make due with confusing, colliding and competing communist capitalism, censorship and conspiracy, coercion by the former champion chairman and comrades of China. This is The Big C. (more…)

Dave and Sarah Say:

As we continue to eat our way around the world, we are pleased to offer you, our dear readers, tonight’s special dish:

Fried Put Down Bag, Dried Veg Tabasco with Pepper

So, place your napkin upon your lap and toast both the wondrous and bizarre as we bring you the best and worst culinary China has to offer. (more…)

Dave says:

The Asians have a particular way of going about their bus business and it isn’t the way we go about ours. Riding the bus anywhere in Asia appears at first to be a step back in time; the lack of humanity and civility being almost too much to bare. Then, after enough bum-numbing, vomit inducing, deafening and death defying miles you can’t help but wonder at the total humanity of it all. It’s a humanity that is lacking in the west. We are cut of from our fellow humans by our iPods and desire to just get to where we’re going without interacting with or catching a cold from the guy sitting next to us. Take away the iPod and make the common cold the least of the ailments you have to worry about and the bus becomes the connection between you and your world with a chance to chat to your neighbours in the process. (more…)

Dave Says:

If you truly want to travel, use your nose. Not as a direction finding instrument but as the sense that informs your desirous brain that you’ve arrived. Arrived at what is unclear until you get there and that all depends on what you’re looking for to begin with. In the case of China, I know we’ve arrived at the more challenging aspects of travelling because everything smells vaguely of pee. When life smells like that you know you’re in the real world and not on vacation. Sometimes it smells very much of pee, or in the case of the small child who took a dump right next me on the floor of the train carriage we were in, it smells distinctly of poop. (more…)

Sarah says:

 My mind was running wild imagining what Chinese Immigration would be like.  David and I both admitted that going through any immigration makes us  a little nauseous.  Even Dutch immigration never failed to make me sweat a wee bit even though their toughest question ever was aflirtatious , “Do you speak Dutch?”  There was the time, I don’t think I ever documented this, during all my back and forth between Amsterdam and London that Heathrow immigration almost didn’t let me into the country and I have a ‘coded’ stamp in my passport as a souvenir.  This means that from April of this year for the next six months they will view any of my attempts to enter England as mildly suspicious on account of them thinking I’m actually illegally living there.

 But this is a whole different ball game, right?  This isn’t the Lovey English or milk-drinking Dutch – this is CHINA!  Now tell me who in their right mind would be relaxed about entering China for the first time? Fortunately, the only other westerner on our ferry, a girl from Germany traveling alone, had made friends with a Chinese girl and they were in line in front of us.  Every calming word the Chinese girl said to the German girl David and I overheard and it was calming us, too.  We also knew that the Chinese girl was studying in Seoul and she was coming home to visit her parents who were just on the other side of immigration waiting for her.  Her pure excitement put me at ease as well.  What bad could possibly happen trying to cross a border that this adorable little thing was so clearly excited to cross? (more…)

Dave Says:

I love disaster movies and especially ones where ocean liners are concerned. I’m writing this entry not from an ocean liner but from a very large international ferry currently in somewhat minor melodrama, adrift in the Yellow Sea between Korea and China. The ‘slow boat to China’ is certainly turning out to be slower than anticipated which has given me the opportunity look about the ship and its passengers with a Poseidon Adventure/Titanic type eye. (more…)